As wonderful as Logitech’s Harmony universal remotes are,
there’s still one major piece of media entertainment equipment that it still
cannot command: the PlayStation 3. Enter the iPhone, which will soon be able to interface with Sony’s console.

Blu-ray Disc solutions provider Netblender will announce
later this week a new SDK for iPhone developers which will expand the features
of movie playback on the PS3. One immediate benefit is that the iPhone will be
able to act as a wireless remote for the PlayStation 3, perhaps robbing away
several sales of Sony’s multimedia remote.

Denny Breitenfeld, the CTO of NetBlender, explained to Gizmodo
that the upcoming software will be able to do much more than play, pause and
track. “It's a technology that is built into our professional Blu-Ray authoring
tool that will allow studios, independent movie companies to enable BD Touch
features. These features send data in two directions from the Disc to the iPhone and vice versa. Video, Audio, text, and player commands can be sent,” he
said. “So right now it seems everyone likes the "remote control"
idea. However the player can control the iPhone as well.”

While movie studios may not program special Blu-ray Disc
movie features specifically for PlayStation 3 users, the possibility exists for
special iPhone interoperability, such as the display of Internet Movie Database
information.

“One idea is to automatically pull up [IMDB] of the movie
you are watching right on your Iphone or send the movie information a movie
database on your phone. The ideas are only limited to what people want and will
use,” added Breitenfeld.

Other functions could be for the iPhone to record and track
your movie collection and playback habits. Another feature, first revealed by
Sony for the PSP, is the potential for portable copies for playback on the
iPhone or iPod Touch.

Sony first discussed
this feature at CES 2008, but hasn’t yet set a firm date on the rollout of
the technology.

"Well, there may be a reason why they call them 'Mac' trucks! Windows machines will not be trucks." -- Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer